Anonymity

I have been asked, “But hey. It’s Alcoholics Anonymous. Shouldn’t you not be talking about it?” I am grateful for the question, because it helped me do some research and soul searching.

One answer to the question is clear: I will never share who else I see in a meeting. It is vital that those who walk into the rooms of AA know that their identity will be held sacred and not disclosed by others. That is crystal clear.

But whether or not I can disclose that I am a member of AA myself? That is a more difficult and controversial question.

My sobriety date is January 1, 2018. The reason it’s January 1st is because my decision not to drink was a fucking new year’s resolution. A hail Mary to try and save myself. I didn’t know what an alcoholic was, and I didn’t know what AA was. To the extent I had thought about it, the picture I had of an alcoholic was a bum, sleeping under a bridge, clutching a bottle in a brown paper bag. I wasn’t that. I was a successful lawyer in a prestigious law firm. I owned my house. I hadn’t gotten a DUII (yet). I hadn’t lost a job (yet). I hadn’t lost friends (yet). By all appearances, I was a success and doing just fine. And if someone had told me they thought I was an alcoholic? I’m sure I would have said, “Fuck you, I can handle my liquor just fine.”

And I could too. Until I couldn’t.

As I shared in this post, I hit my bottom sometime between Christmas and New Year’s of 2017. I had two holiday parties to go to that night. One that started at 3 pm, and another that started around 5 pm. At that point in my drinking career, I had convinced myself that if I only drank gin martinis I wouldn’t be hung over the next day. So that’s what I did. I started drinking gin martinis at 3 pm, and I don’t remember anything that happened after 6 pm.

Normally I was not a black out drinker (except one time at Tommy Tutone’s house, but that’s a story for another time). My memory would get fuzzy, but I would always remember. And I was always able to get myself home. This night was different. I have guesses as to why I blacked out that night, but really, it doesn’t matter. What I do know is that somehow I ended up sitting on a curb, by myself, in downtown Portland. I don’t know how I ended up there. I don’t know how long I was there for. Somehow I was able to call the man I was dating at the time, and he came and got me and took me home.

When I came to the next morning, I was still drunk. Shaking. I tried to piece together what had happened. I remember looking at myself in the mirror, feeling sick and disgusted with myself. Again. And I knew I was lucky. I hadn’t lost my job. I didn’t get assaulted. I didn’t get robbed. Thank God, I didn’t drive. It felt like the Universe was saying, “Okay, baby girl. I kept you safe this time. I can’t make any more promises.”

I knew I had to stop. But I didn’t know how to stop. I didn’t know if I was more scared to drink again, or to not drink again. I didn’t know if I could get through a day without drinking, let alone a week. Let alone forever. I was a lawyer. Lawyers drink. What the fuck was I supposed to do?

At New Years, my best friend poured me a glass of champagne, and we toasted at midnight. I took a sip, and I left the rest of it on the coffee table as we finished the movie we were watching. It was so hard for me to focus on the movie because I could still see that glass of champagne. Everything in me wanted to drink it, and everything in me wanted not to drink it. I felt crazy.

So January 1st, I made a resolution to not drink. For how long? I didn’t know. But at least that day.

Then the Universe stepped in again.

I was seeing a professional coach at the time, and she and I met on January 2nd. I mentioned to her, probably jokingly, that I thought I had a problem with drinking. She slowly pulled the story out of me, and it turned out that she had a friend in recovery. She put me in touch with this person, and they took me to my first AA meeting the next day.

I met this friend in the parking lot of a Lutheran church. (I would get to know so many more churches in the years to come.) In the parking lot we started shooting the shit, telling our crazy “drunk-a-logs.” I was laughing, trying not to show how nervous I was. We went into the church’s gymnasium, and sat down in folding chairs that were arranged in rows. Everyone quieted as the meeting started. Because the room was so big, I couldn’t hear a damn thing anyone was saying. I was just sitting there, looking up at the lights and the basketball hoops, trying to hold back tears, wondering how the hell I had ended up here. Then the tears started, slowly at first, so I could pretend there was just something in my eye. But then they streamed down my face. Someone behind me (I never turned around to find out who) handed me some paper towels from the bathroom. Strangers started squeezing my shoulders. But otherwise, no one said anything directly to me. I cried for the full hour and a half of that meeting.

Slowly, I started looking around the room through my glassy eyes. Everyone looked…. normal. Some young. Some old. Some men. Some women. Some just from the office. Some in workout clothes. Some saw me crying. Some didn’t. But no one was judging me, or each other. No one looked at me with pity in their eyes. They just held space. They just let me cry.

Then I heard someone say, “One drink is too many, a thousand is never enough.”

And I thought, “Oh shit. I’m in the right place.”

When I saw my coach a week later, she asked me if I felt like a failure because I had to admit I was an alcoholic. It was a fair question. That was my “m.o.” If anything went “wrong” in my life, that meant I was a failure.

But no. Not this time. By admitting I was an alcoholic and finding AA, I found relief. I found an answer to the question that my ex-husband had asked me so many years earlier, “Why can’t you just have one drink?” I didn’t know the answer to the question then. But I do know now.

I was a member of my local Inn of Court for eight or nine years. It’s a group of litigators and judges who meet once a month to discuss legal issues, ethics, and to get to know one another. I love this group (and did a lot of my drinking with this group). I was almost two years sober when I was asked to share my recovery story with the Inn. I didn’t know if that was a smart thing for a lawyer in the early stages of their career to do. There is a judge in our community who is very open with his recovery, and shares his story at CLEs (continuing legal education programs that lawyers are required to attend). He was also speaking at that same event, so I reached out to him and asked for his advice. I wasn’t a judge, a partner in a law firm, or anywhere near “done” with my career. Was it wise to share my story so publicly?

His advice, “So long as you are comfortable and it will not affect your sobriety, then do it.”

And so I did. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. But also one of the things I am the most proud of.

Here is why I shared my story to that group: Because I knew that when they looked at me, they didn’t see an alcoholic. They saw a successful attorney, who was a friend, colleague, and someone they enjoyed being around. I wanted to stand as an example that an alcoholic wasn’t necessarily that bum under the bridge that I had envisioned. And stand as an example that recovery is possible. That you could be a successful attorney, who was a friend, colleague, and someone fun to be around, and also an alcoholic. And if someone else in that room was scared, or felt crazy, or even if I just planted a seed for someone to remember years later, then any backlash against me would be worth it.

And I only started this blog and writing about it once I had made the decision to leave the practice of law. Why? I don’t quite know. But I knew that whatever I did next, this was a part of me and it was coming with me. I didn’t want to hide in the shadows, ashamed of some dirty secret anymore.

Along with the Twelve Steps of AA there are also Twelve Traditions. The 11th Tradition states: “Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.” And the 12th Tradition states, “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.”

Based on these two traditions, no. I probably should not share publicly that I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I agree with the spiritual principles behind anonymity. It makes everyone in the fellowship on equal footing, and everyone is there for the same reason: a desire to stop drinking. I don’t think anyone should (or frankly would) come to AA just because I was there. And there are other recovery programs out there other than AA.

But yes. I talk about it. I talk about it because I wish someone had talked about it with me. And I share my story, not to criticize anyone else’s drinking habits or to criticize how much lawyers drink (whether someone is an alcoholic is between them and their higher power), but to remind all of us that we never know what’s going on behind the scenes of someone else’s life. And to suggest that if you notice that one of your friends isn’t drinking at an event or a party, maybe don’t comment on it. Just let them do their thing. You never know if they may be three years sober, three days sober, or just trying to get through the next moment.

And I share because I don’t think being an alcoholic is something to be ashamed of. But I am fully aware that there is still a lot of shame around it. But the more we talk about it, normalize it, and understand it, the less power that shame can hold over us.

Hi. I’m Sarah. And I’m an alcoholic.